


Drenched

by glorifiedscapegoat



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M, Reunion Fic, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26358634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorifiedscapegoat/pseuds/glorifiedscapegoat
Summary: Eight years ago, Shion opened his window and a silver-eyed boy swept in and changed his world. Since the day Nezumi left to travel the world, Shion hasn't stopped screaming into storms, hoping to summon him home.
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Drenched

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone!
> 
> I participated in Vox's writing sprint as part of Reunion Will Con 2020, and after the event concluded, I thought it would be fun to expand upon the piece that I wrote during the 40-minute writing period. The theme I chose to write about was "rain", based on the themes available to us, and it quickly turned into a reunion fic, which would make this the second reunion fic I've written for Shion and Nezumi.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!

Shion jolted awake, clawing at his blankets. The fabric twisted beneath his fingers, trapping his legs. He thrashed onto his side, reaching desperately for the edge of the mattress. Panic bolted through him, a cold feeling that cascaded down his spine as if someone had emptied a bucket of freezing water over his head.

He jerked upright, ripping the blanket from around his shins and throwing it onto the floor. His heart fluttered in his chest, a scarlet bird trapped eternally behind a flimsy cage of bone. His breath came in rapid puffs as he glanced around the darkness of his bedroom. His eyes picked out the faint brushes of early morning light against the blue paint, the corner of the oak desk he used when he worked at home, the metal panes around the window where a heavy blue curtain sat and obscured the world beyond.

He came down from the panic all at once. Like a switch flicking off, the terror that'd seized him vanished, leaving behind an empty sort of satisfaction that came with the understanding that he'd made it out of the Correctional Facility.

He was alive.

He was safe.

Shion pulled his knees against his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Another nightmare. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against his kneecaps, exhaling into the fabric of his pajama pants. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a few weeks, and he’d begun to think the medication his therapist prescribed was working. He supposed, in a way, that one nightmare in a month's time wasn’t too bad of a success rate. The haunting images had certainly been much worse and far more constant in the past.

He stretched his legs out, feeling his bare toes against the fabric. The sensation was grounding, quickly pulling him from the cold tile of the Correctional Facility's basement and back into the reality of his mother’s bakery. The old bedroom he thought he’d never see again. The gloomy, miserable window that wasn’t the same one that’d changed his life eight years ago.

He wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon. Shion knew himself well enough to know that if he tried, he'd just toss and turn and spend the rest of his day being miserable. The best cure for nightmare-induced anxiety was to do something else until sleep came back to him naturally.

Shion rose from the bed, kicking aside the blanket piled on the floor as he crossed over to the window. The room was dark, with no real sense of light other than a thin beam of silver coming from beneath the door and shining through the curtain. Shion had thought they were blackout curtains when he purchased them, but he’d been pleasantly mistaken. The thought of waking in pitch-blackness seemed nice in theory, as far as sleeping went, but in reality, it would have only increased the anxiety Shion felt after a particularly terrible nightmare.

He threw them aside and peered out into the night sky.

Raindrops pattered against the solid glass. He hadn’t heard them until now; as soon as he became aware of their presence, it was all he could focus on. Fat droplets exploded on the fogged glass, the trees at the edge of the balcony, the side of the house, soaking the world in liquid diamonds. Shion's lips drew back in a thoughtful smile as that same desperate itch from eight years ago came flooding back.

With swift fingers, Shion undid the ancient lock on the window and yanked it open. Wind ruffled through his snowy hair as he swung his leg over the ledge and onto the little balcony. His bare foot slid on the soaked wood as he quietly eased himself out of his bedroom and into the storm.

It wasn't as powerful as the storm that'd changed his life eight years ago―but it was a storm, all the same.

The thin black tee shirt he’d dragged over his head and the dark, cotton pajama pants he’d changed into that night were drenched in a matter of seconds, clinging heavy and uncomfortable against his skin. He winced at the goosebumps that sprung up on his arms and bare legs, forming little constellations that he would feel beneath his palms the moment he wrapped his arms around his body to keep warm.

He clenched his teeth and bit back the sharp cry that came in response to the cold as he quickly spun around and closed the window behind him. He’d learned the last time not to leave it open unless he wanted the carpet to grow moldy. His mother had scolded him properly for it, though there was a strange level of understanding beneath her remarks. She knew, as well as anyone else, what storms meant to Shion―how his response to them was instinctive and difficult to ignore.

He also remembered to make sure he didn’t close it too hard, lest the old lock fall and snap into place, trapping him out on the balcony in the rain until sunrise when his mother came to put the garbage out and saw him, a drenched fool cowering in his pajamas, huddled in a ball against the house. He'd been bedridden for three days after that, trembling with fever and dreaming of silver-eyes.

Shion hurried to the edge of the balcony and squinted through the heavy sheet of raindrops. He couldn’t see much beyond a wall of delicate silver knives raining down on the world below. Icicles shot through the long strands of his hair, flattening them against his forehead but thankfully not into his eyes. He’d cut the ends of his hair a few days ago and could still feel the sharp, ragged ends tickling the nape of his neck. He wasn’t a good hair stylist, and his hands were shaky and unimpressive. Nezumi would have laughed himself sick if he could see the uneven results of Shion's paltry attempt.

Shion’s heart gave a painful leap. _Nezumi_. It’d been a little over four years since Shion had escorted him to the edge of town and watched him walk away without looking back. There was nothing Nezumi could do to prove that he would return; he'd simply kissed Shion, passing all his hopes and promises through the brief, heart-stopping contact, and then vowed to return someday. Shion had watched him go because, even though it hurt him, he understood. He understood that No.6 had left Nezumi broken and confused and desperate to understand who he was beneath the need for revenge. He'd forced back a wave of tears and watched Nezumi go with a smile, offering him his prayers and his heart along his journey.

The years that followed felt… odd, in many ways. Shion could simultaneously feel the drag of it, but also the rush of the months as the long days without Nezumi by his side chugged by.

Water trickled down the length of his nose and onto his parted lips. Shion’s tongue darted out and lapped at the droplets, tasting the freedom contained within them. He unwrapped his hands from around his body and placed them on the railing, anchoring himself in the midst of the wind. He stood quietly, an island in the midst of a horrendous typhoon, desperately searching for a way through it.

And yet, Shion found a strange sense of calm among the storm. The itch that bloomed at the base of his skull―so similar to the scratching of the parasitic wasp that'd nearly destroyed him―vanished beneath the heavy raindrops pouring over his head, soaking him through to the bone. He stood beneath the cold blades of wind until he couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel his toes, couldn’t see or hear anything but the darkness and the rush of water that drowned out his own thoughts.

And then, as the storm reached its crescendo, Shion leaned over the balcony and screamed.

Eight years ago, that same scream had summoned a silver-eyed boy to his side, dripping blood onto the floor and desperate for help. Shion threw his heart and soul into the void, calling out into the depths with all his might, praying that this time― _this_ time he would look up and see the boy who’d swept in and changed his life.

When there was nothing left in his lungs, Shion knelt down and pressed his forehead against the railing. Every time it rained, he performed this ritual in hopes that it would bring back… something. A memory, a dream, a familiar smile that would rescue him from the nightmares plaguing him.

Shion inhaled and closed his eyes. In hindsight, it was a rather ridiculous thing to do. He never ended up satisfied with it. He usually just ended up cold, miserable and bedridden for the next few days. What was the point of standing out here every time the sky decided to cry for him if it was just going to make him feel worse?

He opened his eyes and peered down into the shadows. The rain soaked the ground, striking the decorative stones Karan had placed around the bakery last year and pinging off the trash can. No, wait―there were two trash cans next to the back door. Shion squinted down at it, peering through the darkness to try and get a better look. He didn’t remember Karan getting another one.

The second trash can moved, and Shion’s heart stopped. He squinted through the darkness, cold to the bone and soaked to the skin, but desperately searching―searching the impenetrable shadows for another sign of movement, evidence that this wasn’t just a trick―

The trash can moved again, this time turning its head to glance up at the balcony. Two silver coins glinted back at him from the shadows, and Shion’s heart clenched. It couldn't be. He stared down over the ledge, certain his eyes were playing tricks on him, certain that after four years of screaming into storms, he'd finally gone mad.

The silver winked at him again, and if Shion stared hard enough through it, he could see a tall figure standing in the rain, drenched to the bone and smiling up at him.

Shion jumped to his feet and scrambled back to the window. He wrenched the glass open, heedless to the water he brought into his bedroom and deaf to the loud clattering the glass and metal made as he stumbled over the ledge, nearly tripping on the floor and face-planting the carpet. He raced across his bedroom to yank the door open and hurried out into the hallway, taking the steps two at a time as he sprinted to the backdoor and wrenched it open with an impossibly wide smile.

It didn’t matter if he'd forgotten to close the window upstairs. It didn't matter if the carpet was damp and ruined by morning.

A pair of silver eyes flashed back at him. Nezumi cocked his head to the side and said, in that same voice Shion heard in his dreams, "Really? Screaming into storms again, Your Majesty?"

Nothing else mattered at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Interested in some more awesome No.6 stuff and other random nonsense? Then come hang out with me on Tumblr: **https://glorifiedscapegoat.tumblr.com/**


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